While the Oscars often seem to be regarded as the only awards that matter, you can get a better idea of a film's worth by looking at the plaudits it garners at home. This year's LAFF includes all the winning titles from the 2006 Australian Film Institute awards, including white trash hit Suburban Mayhem and stylish new thriller Jindabyne. There are fine documentaries too, with the bush tales of Kanyini and The Balanda And The Bark Canoes making an excellent companion piece for closing film Ten Canoes.

Whatever the economic state of the country, Poland has always made it relatively easy to get films made there - a factor David Lynch took full advantage of when making Inland Empire. This festival delivers a slew of the latest in Polish cinema. Konrad Niewolski's Palimpsest provides a typically Polish multi-tiered approach to storytelling: a detective's investigation of a complex case is hindered by his mental breakdown. Documentary How To Do It tells an often hilarious tale of how to set yourself up as a vote-winning politician.

Jakub Kolski's Jasminum is a sensual drama set in a monastery while the wryly titled Ode To Joy tells three separate tales of immigrants hoping for a better life in Britain and The Portraitist gives the fascinating account of a photographer forced to document Nazi atrocities. Polish director Agnieszka Holland returns with another of her detailed period dramas, Copying Beethoven, a rare English language offering here.

The term "cutting edge" crops up regularly in the programme of this audio/visual festival, but it doesn't feel overused. Some of it will sound baffling to over-30s but there's a tradition to events like this, as Cindy Keefer explains with a lecture on such things as colour organs from the 1700s. Peter Greenaway will be presenting his Tulse Luper Suitcases VJ Performance. Addictive TV and Charles Atlas unveil new work, and there are music promos and installations galore.

Three of last year's most acclaimed movies came from Spanish-speaking directors - Pan's Labyrinth, Children Of Men and Babel - and their directors are all close friends. That's not an uncommon situation in Spanish and Latin American film-making, there is a real collaborative passion in these films. Opening film Salvador tells the harrowing tale of the last political prisoner to be executed in Spain by garrotte.

Other notables include Manel Mayol's Apaga Y Vámanos, Julio D Wallovits' La Silla and documentaries from Ambutante, set up by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna's company. Selections from the festival will then tour 24 venues nationwide.